The Complete Compleat Enchanter by Fletcher Pratt, L. Sprague deCamp Page B

If you’ll just wait a minute, I’ll look it up in my book of magic formulas.”
    There was just enough light left to read by. Shea got out his Boy Scout Manual. Surely it would tell him what to do—if not with failing matches, at least it would instruct him in the art of rubbing sticks.
    He opened it at random and peered, blinked his eyes, shook his head, and peered again. The light was good enough. But the black marks on the page, which presumably were printed sentences, were utterly meaningless. A few letters looked vaguely familiar, but he could make nothing of the words. He leafed rapidly through the book; it was the same senseless jumble of hen tracks everywhere. Even the few diagrams meant nothing without the text.
    Harold Shea stood with his mouth open and not the faintest idea of what to do next. “Well,” rumbled Thor, “where is our warlock fire?”
    In the background Loki tittered. “He perhaps prefers to eat his turnips uncooked.”
    “I . . . I’m sorry, sir,” babbled Shea. “I’m afraid it won’t work.”
    Thor lifted his massive fist. “It is time,” he said, “to put an end to this lying and feeble child of man who raises our hopes and then condemns us to a dinner of cold salmon.”
    “No, Slayer of Giants,” said Loki. “Hold your hand. He furnishes us something to laugh at, which is always good in this melancholy country. I may be able to use him where we are going.”
    Thor slowly lowered his arm. “Yours be the responsibility. I am not unfriendly to the children of men; but for liars I have no sympathy. What I say I can do, and that will I do.”
    Thjalfi spoke. “If ye please, sir, there’s a dark something up yonder.” He pointed toward the head of the valley. “Maybe we can find shelter.”
    Thor growled an assent; they got back into the chariot and drove up toward the dark mass. Shea was silent, with the blackest of thoughts. He would leave his position as researcher at the Garaden Institute to go after adventure with a capital A, would he? And as an escape from a position where he felt himself inferior and inclosed. Well, he told himself bitterly, he had landed in another still more inclosed and inferior. Yet why was it his preparations had so utterly failed? There was no reason for the matches’ not lighting or the book’s turning into gibberish—or for that matter the failure of the flashlight on the night before.
    Thjalfi was whispering to him. “By the beard of Odinn, I’m ashamed of you, friend Harold. Why did ye promise a fire if ye couldn’t make it?”
    “I thought I could, honest,” said Shea morosely.
    “Well, maybe so. Ye certainly rubbed the Thunderer the wrong way. Ye’d best be grateful to Uncle Fox. He saved your life for you. He ain’t as bad as some people think, I always say. Usually helps you out in a real pinch.”
    The dark something grew into the form of an oddly shaped house. The top was rounded, the near end completely open. When they went, in Shea found to his surprise that the floor was of some linoleumlike material, as were the curving walls and low-arched roof. There seemed only a single broad low room, without furniture or lights. At the far end they could dimly make out five hallways, circular in cross section, leading they knew not where. Nobody cared to explore.
    Thjalfi and Shea dragged down the heavy chest and fished out blankets. For supper the four glumly chewed pieces of smoked salmon. Thor’s eyebrows worked in a manner that showed he was trying to control justifiable anger.
    Finally Loki said: “It is in my mind that our fireless warlock has not heard the story of your fishing, son of Jörd.”
    “Oh,” said Thor, “that story is not unknown. But it is good that men should hear it and learn from it. Let me think—”
    “Odinn preserve us!” murmured Thjalfi in Shea’s ear. “I’ve only heard this a million times.”
    Thor rumbled: “I was guesting with the giant Hymir. We rowed far out in the blue sea. I baited my